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Ubuntu Prompts For Donations When Downloading

10-09-2012, 04:00 PM

Phoronix: Ubuntu Prompts For Donations When Downloading

Just a few weeks after Canonical integrated Amazon product results into Unity's Dash in an effort to generate more money through affiliate/referral revenue, they have taken another step today to try to increase their cash flow...

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I also feel this is a really good idea, because not only does this get linux funding more attention but it can get canonical to realize what really needs work. This reminds me a lot of how wine gets funded. Unfortunately, it seems like there are a lot of programs that have hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars donated but they haven't been usable in years.

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Great idea. I already fund Wine dev by renewing my Crossover, help Linux gaming by buying every HIB at a worthy price (and at some point has phoronix premium - had to cancel during some difficulties - I should reinstate it). Always thought being able to directly to Ubuntu would be good.

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I've been blathering on about this kind of thing for a while. But with a crucial difference - just like with Humble Bundle some of the money should go to relevant charities (eg EFF), organizations (eg FSF, Gnome) and to upstream suppliers. And you should be able to do it for your desktop too. Something like "As you use your Ubuntu system, third parties provide referral and similar funding. How would you like it allocated?". Note that already happens today, eg Canonical get all the money when you use Firefox or make music purchases.

But if they really believed in community, and realised that the vast majority of Ubuntu comes from others, then they would kickback to them too. Instead I can't distinguish Canonical's actions from sheer selfish greed.

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I don't think Canonical is doing anything ethically wrong here. However, isn't it nominally supposed to be a for-profit company, capable of supporting itself? If I was an investor I'd be getting nervous about this.

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Just as you can donate directly instead of going via the Humble Bundle.

The difference is that Canonical receives revenues today through people using Ubuntu, and then keeps all those revenues for itself without in any way sending some upstream. The Humble Bundle style sliders are the perfect way to redistribute the revenue fairly.

You are right that they are under no legal obligation to redistribute any money upstream. However over 99% of Ubuntu comes from those upstreams. Canonical is no way responsible for the web browsers, office suites, music players, games, development tools, editors, movie makers etc that people use. Remember that they have proactively changed revenues eg with that music player so they get the money. Again there is nothing illegal in what they do, but by keeping everything for themselves they show who they really care about, which means those upstreams are going to care a heck of a lot less about Canonical.

As for Canonical's financial prospects, they seem to hire a heck of a lot of people. The "community" team is 6 people! As I recall several years ago it was revealed that half of Canonical employees actually worked on Launchpad.

As for Canonical's financial prospects, they seem to hire a heck of a lot of people. The "community" team is 6 people! As I recall several years ago it was revealed that half of Canonical employees actually worked on Launchpad.

Do you happen to have any official statistics on canoncial's employees and what these are working on?